Matt Furber

Freelance Journalist

Minneapolis

Matt Furber

Featured

Ground zero: Hennepin County Medical Center became the terminus for dozens of overdosing patients. Paramedics first noticed the patient spike: “We were getting these repeat calls and sometimes the same day—some within hours of each other.”. One day last September, a few patients turned up at HCMC presenting a baffling range of symptoms: aggression, confusion, catatonia.

Officer Mohamed Noor. City of Minneapolis, via Associated Press. The Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot an unarmed Australian woman last summer, an incident that led to protests and the ouster of the city’s police chief, was jailed Tuesday on charges of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

Senator Al Franken of Minnesota on Capitol Hill in Washington in October. Tom Brenner/The New York Times. Vile behavior, said one liberal activist. Absolutely wrong, said a lawyer who votes Democratic. More proof that he does not live up to Minnesota values, said a Republican woman who voted against him.

POLLEN erupted from the trees like smoke from a forest fire. We were resting with our bikes atop granite cliffs, looking out over the Saco River, taking a break from mountain biking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire . For five days I joined riders from the New England Mountain Bike Association, traveling through the thick forest of their mountainous backyard.

A creekside spa in the mountains is a perfect place to soak in the wild geology of the Idaho sandbox. The water from the Frenchman’s Bend hot springs out Warm Springs Road west of Ketchum leaves the earth at 125 degrees Fahrenheit. While spring runoff can wash out such favorites—for a time—geological wonders have a way of enduring.

Held at gunpoint by a SWAT team, Ellen Nasvik and Jason Dykhouse were ordered to the floor of a Minneapolis Kinkos. SWAT was looking for a gunman. The newlyweds were making thank-you notes. They had just returned from their Idaho honeymoon. That was nearly 25 years ago. The alleged gunman was never found, and for Nasvik and Dykhouse, it was a traumatic last straw.

If there’s a limit to Wood River Valley giving, it seems to be the sky. For the sporadic volunteer or the well-heeled benefactor, there may be no more immersive place to wade into philanthropy. The journey can begin with a conversation with one of hund. reds of nonprofit employees on the slopes, or on the lawn at the Sun Valley Summer Symphony, where a symphony staffer might share a personal affinity for The Hunger Coalition.

Julie McGregor has outfoxed the Blaine County housing conundrum for more than a decade. Through the 2008 financial crisis, the exit of her longtime employer, Smith Optics, and the ongoing scourge of short-term rentals sucking up long-term housing, McGregor has weathered it all. With vacancy rates “catastrophically low” for nearly two years, according to ARCH Community Housing Trust Executive Director Michelle Griffith, McGregor’s trajectory on the time-space housing continuum is still as smooth as the brightest satellite coursing a stargazer’s limelight.

There was something bad going on in the alleyway behind the house, she told her fiancé on the phone, someone who sounded as if she was in distress, maybe a rape. It was past 11 p.m., and most people on Washburn Avenue were furled in their beds. Except Justine Damond, alone at home with the noises, her anxiety creeping into the loud Las Vegas casino where her fiancé had answered the phone.

The woman, Justine Damond, 40, an immigrant from Australia who described herself as a spiritual healer and was due to be married next month, was fatally shot in the abdomen on Saturday in a quiet residential area of southwestern Minneapolis. News reports identified the officer who shot her as Mohamed Noor, 31.

When the world glimpsed Officer Jeronimo Yanez in a Facebook Live video last summer, his gun was pointed through the window of Philando Castile’s Oldsmobile. The patrolman’s voice was elevated. He shouted expletives. He claimed he opened fire because Mr. Castile was reaching for a gun. On Friday, Officer Yanez spoke about the shooting again, this time in a courtroom here where he is on trial for second-degree manslaughter.

Sheriff says officer forced to fire when victim refused to drop knife. Tom Algiers, a 25-year Ketchum resident, was shot and killed by a Blaine County deputy officer during a confrontation with police early Sunday morning. Blaine County Sheriff Walt Femling said one of his deputies was forced to shoot Algiers, 45, when he refused to heed police orders to drop a knife.